Error Theory

Moral science has two halves. There are the implications of thinking straight about fact and value (ideal theory) and there are the implications of not thinking straight. Ideal theory is the foundation, error theory the daily battle.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Senator Lugar: Congress should give the terrorists the victory that they cannot win on the battlefield

Senator Lugar (R Indiana) says the war in Iraq cannot be won because Congress does not have the staying power that al Qaeda and Iran do:

The prospects that the current “surge” strategy will succeed in the way originally envisioned by the President are very limited within the short period framed by our own domestic political debate. [Full speech here.]

Faced with this "reality," Lugar has come out in favor of withdrawal from Iraq. He wants America to declare defeat.

Lugar speaks as if Congress' lack of staying power is some force of nature, instead of a reflection of the weakness of elected representatives like himself. This is expected on the Democrat side. The Democrats have made abundantly clear that they seek American defeat in Iraq because they think it will be to their domestic political advantage.

The Iraq war is “lost” and the Democrats will “pick up Senate seats” because of it, says Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, as he works feverishly to de-fund the war in time to insure these outcomes.

Republicans are supposed to be the opposition. Our troops in Iraq depend on the Republicans to stop the Democrats from pulling the rug out from under them, but instead of fighting this home-front battle, Lugar simply declares defeat. "The Democrats are going to win," he is in-effect admitting, "so we might as well throw in the towel now."

We did not elect our Republican representatives to unilaterally surrender to the Democrats. We elected them to oppose the Democrats.

Voinovich too

Voinovich (RINO OH) has joined Lugar in demanding that Iraq be surrendered to our enemies. As reported by McClatchy Newspapers:

Iraq's Shiite majority would reject any Sunni al-Qaida effort to set up a religious government under a supreme leader, he said.

Moron. Doesn't he know that we are fighting both al Qaeda and Iran in Iraq? If we leave, the country will be divided up between the two of them. Yes, the Shiite radicals will likely exterminate the Sunnis and create a second Iran. Some "nonsense."

"The growing stress on our military"

As for Senator Lugar's contention that we need to withdraw from Iraq because "the consequences of continuing to stretch the military are dire," there is a ready answer. Dramatically increase the size of our military, which is tiny compared to our mobilization in any other war. Yet Lugar just says that the kids these days don't want to fight, so our only alternative is to lose.

Making arguments for American defeat is the Democrats' job. Lugar has apparently switched sides.

Republican senators behaved the same way on the immigration fight. Remember John "you have to make concessions to the Democrats" Kyl? Instead of fighting for border enforcement first, Republican senators acquiesed in the Bush/Democrat preference for amnesty without border enforcement. [My post on President Bush's blatantly racist immigration preferences here.]

It's like a contest to see who can surrender first. The Democrats have become "the Surrendercrats" on Iraq, and now the Republicans are trying to surrender to the Democrats. Is it even possible to surrender to people who are trying to surrender? What the hell is wrong with our political class?

Contact Senator Lugar

Senator Lugar is good enough to post a regular email address instead of the cumbersome contact form erected by most elected representatives to make feedback more difficult. I recommend sending him a firm but courteous note. Use mine if you want:

Dear Senator Lugar:

While our troops are fighting in Iraq, you have apparently surrendered on the home front to the Democrats’ objective of securing American defeat in Iraq. Here are your words:

"The prospects that the current 'surge' strategy will succeed in the way originally envisioned by the President are very limited within the short period framed by our own domestic political debate."

What is this but a declaration that Republicans cannot stand up to the Democrats’ drive for American defeat? The time frame for our domestic political debate is controlled by YOU and our other elected representatives. You are declaring your willingness to let our terror war enemies win in our own Congress what they cannot win on the battlefield in Iraq!

The Democrats want to surrender to al Qaeda. The least you can do is not surrender to the Democrats.

Hagel, Warner, Collins, Brownback, Specter, Snowe, they are all Surrendercrats now. Add Lamar Alexander and Judd Gregg, Republican senators from Tennessee and New Hampshire, to the list. Are they really unaware of the astounding progress we have made in getting Sunnis to unite in their opposition to al Qaeda? Anbar is won. Diyala is well on the way to being won. All we need to to now is move out from the beach-head and take out Iran.

J.D. Johannes has posted a more thorough critique of Lugar's speech over at NRO.

If you EVER want another cent from me, this damned amnesty bill had better not pass.

Secure the border FIRST. Then we can talk about a lot of things.

I am in favor of greatly increased LEGAL immigration. Bush, on the other hand, is a stinking racist, wanting to put unlimited illegal Mexican immigration ahead of law abiding immigrants from China, Europe, India, Vietnam, and every other nation. For this racial favoritism, he is willing to abandon both the rule of law and national sovereignty. I am the president’s strongest backer on the war, but if he succeeds with this bill, there is no more Republican party. Dead. Gone. Committed suicide. Rest in Hell.

Sincerely,

Your so-far loyal voter and occasional contributor, ...

It is just important, when leveling such threats, to remember that it is largely bluster. Wrath against the party has to be limited to votes against incumbents in the primaries. In the general election, everyone's duty is to choose the lesser of two evils, and as bad as the Republicans can be, they are nowhere near as bad as the Democrats.

But not everyone gets this logic. When the incumbents alienate their base, they don't just get opposition in the primaries. They get rebellion in the general election too. If that happens on as core an issue as phony immigration reform, the party will indeed "rest in Hell," even though it is only the incumbent representatives who deserve it.

Most conservatives won't want for Republican complicity in an amnesty-first bill to kill off the party. It just will. A party that nukes its base is history. So bluster up. Scare the bastards with the doom that the party is indeed facing, no matter how much some of us will still try to save it.

No bluster in that money threat though. Gun groups offer far more electoral bang for the buck anyway. If the party organization can't even put the border enforcement horse ahead of amnesty cart, then the party is better off without the organization.

About Me

Here is a short bio I sent to press people covering the Flight 93 memorial debacle. My training is as an economist. I was in the PhD program in economics at Stanford until my research led me more towards moral theory and constitutional law, at which point I dropped the program and started working on my own. I was writing a book on republicanism (the system of liberty under law) for World Ahead Publishing when I discovered that the Flight 93 memorial was going to be a terrorist memorial mosque. World Ahead agreed to first publish my book about this rehijacking of Flight 93 (Crescent of Betrayal, temporarily available for free download at CrescentOfBetrayal.com). This is not my first venture into journalism. Over the years I have been a writer, opinions editor, and advisor for Stanford’s conservative campus newspaper The Stanford Review, and am currently on the Review’s board of directors.